Monday, July 18, 2011

Okay, I just posted a blog post on Facebook from 3 years ago tomorrow-- a yummy, crunchy vegan Asian-style salad. I think I will make it for dinner tonight, even though it's cloudy and rainy and a little chilly and has been for most of July! To be truthful, it IS a little warmer than 3 days ago, when I made the soup featured here today. But it was so chilly then that I craved a hearty soup! What a contrast, though!

I was inspired to develop this particular soup by my recent purchase of 454 g (roughly a lb.) of The Wild Mushroom Co. brand dried wild mushrooms from our new local Costco store. My sister had gifted me with a similar jar a couple of years ago from her Burnaby, BC Costco, but we could never get them in the Nanaimo, BC store. But now we have a store in Courtenay, BC (our nearest shopping town) and it carries them! It is such a bargain at under $15! Its a combination of 25% each of porcini, shiitake, yellow boletus, and oyster mushrooms in nice big chunks. (The mushrooms are from Chile, China, Serbia and Montenegro, and packed in France by http://www.borde.fr/anglais/produits/secs/secs.php)

I decided to make a vaguely Polish-style soup with potatoes in it for heartiness, and added an option of a vegan chicken sub (Soy Curls in this case) for a filling whole-meal soup (well, we did have a salad on the side!). Caraway seeds are often used in this type of soup, but I didn't have any (they are hard to find around here!) so I used cumin seeds-- tasted good to me! We were very pleased with the result and ate it for 2 nights running-- it was even better the second night! It is versatile in that it can be tailored to low-fat or no-fat diets, soy-free diets and gluten-free diets.

Place dried mushrooms and water in a 1 qt. saucepan. Bring it to a boil, then simmer, covered, while you prepare the remaining ingredients.

In a food processor (or by hand, if you prefer), finely mince the onion, celery and carrots.

Melt the Earth Balance (if using) in a soup pot over medium-high heat, and add the minced vegetables and a bit of salt. Sauté 5 minutes. Or, just use a spray of oil from a pump-sprayer and “steam-fry”, keeping the vegetables moving and adding a squirt of water every so often—just enough to keep the veggies from sticking, not enough to “stew” them. (**Another option, and one I often use, is to spray a microwave-safe casserole with a little oil, add the veggies and a bit of salt, cover, and microwave on High for about 7 minutes, or until tender. Then transfer them to the soup pot.)

Reduce the heat under the soup pot to medium and add the fresh and dried mushrooms and cumin seeds. Continue cooking until the vegetables are very tender, 15-20 minutes.

Add the strained, reserved mushroom liquid into a pot with the veggie broth and potato cubes. Simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes. Mash the potatoes with a potato masher—a few lumps are okay.

Add the nondairy milk to the pot and heat it through, then season to taste with salt and pepper. Stir the vegan sour cream, flour and paprika together in a small bowl until smooth. Stir into the soup pot (along with the optional Soy Curls, if using) until thoroughly mixed. Heat the soup for a few more minutes over low heat, then serve hot with more vegan sour cream and smoked paprika on the side.

ABOUT MISSING PHOTOS ON OLDER BLOG POSTS:

If you are wondering what happened to the photos on my older blog posts, here's the deal: I used to use Photobucket to store my photos and uploaded them to my blog posts from there. Since about 2012, I have uploaded pics from my computer files instead. All of a sudden, Photobucket is demanding $39 a month for storage and you can't download pictures to blogs or other sites unless you pay that. I find that fee outrageous (and I'm not the only one!). UPDATE: I discovered that I could upload albums from from PB to my computer (or external hard drive). So, I have done that, but it took a couple of days. Now I just have to locate the correct pictures for the old blogs! One step at a time. My apologies... please bear with me! BCG

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